Hypothetical Battle: Anakin vs Deva Path of Pain
by Merciful Idiot
Summary: One day, I thought about this and wondered who'd win. I mean, the Six Paths combined would totally own Anakin Skywalker no matter who he is, but what about the strongest alone? In any case, I made a poll about it on my forum, and it was apparently 4-2. I had actually expected Pain to win, which was why I had voted for the latter, but...Anakin won, surprisingly. So I wrote about it.


**_A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…_**

A young man stood alone within a spaceship, heading for the fiery planet of Mustafar. He had brownish hair that had once been blonde, and wore dark Jedi garments.

His goal was simple; to 'take care' of all the Separatist leaders, execute a command to shut down all droids, and from there his master would contact him. This was all for the benefit of the Republic, or at least, that was what he had been trying to convince himself. The Chancellor- no, Lord Sidious had promised him this. He had promised him the power the save the life of his wife, to save the life of his beloved Padmé.

The name of this fallen warrior was Anakin Skywalker, but he had gone so far from that name by then that it would be more accurate to call him, 'Darth Vader'. A Sith Lord, fallen Jedi, user of the Dark Side, and master of that mystical power known only as the Force.

He was the Chosen One, born of the will of the Force from a single mother, the one foretold to bring _balance_, although his actions, what he had done and accomplished were far from bringing this so-called 'balance'. He had assaulted the Jedi Temple and massacred both venerable Jedi Masters and innocent younglings alike, without question nor hesitation.

If this was the will of the Force, if he was the Chosen One, then what was good and what was evil? The line blurred with his existence.

Suddenly, the ship shook.

Having not expected it, the young Sith Lord ran over to the window and looked out. What he saw was a strange storm, whirling purple energies that had surrounded the spacecraft unnoticed, and now it was trapped within. It was quite clear at that moment that he would die if he stayed inside.

Annoyed that his mission was being interrupted, he thrust his hands up at the window and used his power, manipulating the energies around him and trying to make them scatter.

The reaction wasn't what he had expected. Instead of scattering, the storm thickened as if in radiance with his use of the Force, and the spaceship continued to shake even more heavily. He managed to keep his body balanced, however.

"You shall not get in my way!" he yelled at it.

An orb of swirling red energy began to form around the ship through his dark powers, and then, unleashing this power, the young man tried to push away the storm with sheer force.

Right then, he was blinded by a white light. He clenched his fists in annoyance.

A moment later, he could feel the ship around him breaking up, falling, overheating, something he was familiar with. He was falling down, down, to a planet. What planet, he didn't know, but it definitely wasn't Mustafar. That was still too far away. Then where was he falling down to?

Regardless, he manipulated the Force and tried to slow down the ship's descent, extinguishing parts of the rising flames in the process. The outer shell had almost completely broken apart, and flames were already beginning to burn up the sections within. The hyperdrive was probably ruined by now, so even if he did survive this, escape from the world would prove difficult.

The blue sky passed by brilliantly, a sharp contrast to the burning hell he was currently protecting himself from. The young Vader was pissed, and considered unleashing his full power to save himself…but then he fell below clouds and into rain that drenched the overheating craft. Seeing a chance, he jumped through a gap in the spaceship and ended up falling down.

After only a moment, he could see below him the points of multiple metallic skyscrapers and towers. It would have to do. Using the Force, he launched himself to the side where the tallest of these towers was. It had four ominous faces on each of its sides, but he could hardly care about that.

His body fell into one of the stone mouths, entering it, and he landed on his feet. Then he turned around to observe the place he had fallen into, a highly industrialized city. Its overall structure was simple yet highly fortified, as if the residents were paranoid about outsiders.

He felt a presence appear from behind him.

Turning around, he ignited his lightsaber and swung at the source with his strength before it could react, aiming to cut it down, but then he was suddenly repelled back by a strange gravitational power. He quickly regained his footing with the power of the Force.

"Who are you?!" he shouted out.

A lamp above them lit automatically and revealed the mysterious figure.

It was a pale man with spiky orange hair and multiple piercings all over his face, wearing a black cloak with red clouds decorated around it, his expression absent and judging. However, the thing that made him stood apart the most from any form of humanity was his eyes. Instead of being normal, they were just layers of circles and circles over grey sclera.

"I am Pain," the figure replied calmly. Both of his arms began to rise up until they were pointing straight at the Sith Lord like arrows. "Intruder disrupting peace, perish now. The other Paths of Pain are as of yet inactive, however, this is more than sufficient to dispose of you."

"I don't care about that," Anakin shot at him. "I am a Sith Lord! You should be cowering in fear! What world is this?!"

By now, he had grown really annoyed. He didn't have any time to waste, he had to finish his master's command and get to Mustafar. But at the moment, that was impossible, and the technology on this planet didn't seem to be capable of space travel yet. He could just build one, there were plenty of resources in this city, but the fact remained that he had been slowed.

"You are filled with anger," Pain stated bluntly.

"ANGER GIVES ME POWER!" the young man yelled.

His right hand moving into a cupped shape, and by taking hold of the Force he strangled this mysterious Pain. With just a little more effort, he picked the pierced figure up from the ground, tightening his grip around the neck. With his free hand, now holding an ignited blue lightsaber, he prepared to cut down the man.

But despite being suspended in midair, Pain showed no reaction, as if he didn't care his head could be torn off effortlessly at any moment. Or perhaps he just didn't feel pain.

"Anger, hatred, despair. They are all but trivial emotions that simply end…in war. Yet, knowing this, why have you chosen this path?" he asked the Sith Lord, his voice showing no signs that his vocal cords were breaking.

"My wife-" Anakin began, faltering a bit with his force grip.

Then, the same gravitational power from earlier repelled him once more, negating his grip. Once again, he used the Force to prevent himself from pitifully falling at this height. Pain's feet landed back on the floor.

"And love too, it appears. But what do you hope to achieve with such fantasies on this path, far separated from the reality of agony and despair?" he continued.

"You….!" the Sith Lord spat out. "I am going to bring peace to the galaxy, with this newfound power! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?!"

Ending his speech in an anguished yell, he thrust his hands both up into the air and clenched them, taking hold of the entire ceiling. Then with the power of the Force, he forced it all to collapse, and collapse it did.

As expected, Pain replied once more with that gravitational push, repelling away all the falling rubble, but at that moment Anakin came charging at him, lightsaber that cuts pretty much anything in hand. Meanwhile, without a ceiling, rain began to pour heavily on them.

He had intended to slice the man into pieces, having decided that he should be temporarily distracted after using his Forcelike powers, and thus he had moved in to take advantage of this distraction.

However, he quickly changed his target when his opponent suddenly revealed what he vaguely remembered to be a kunai knife, aimed at his heart. Thus, he cut apart the blade before it could do so, and tried to swing once more at Pain straight afterwards.

But by then, it was already too late. Once more, that same gravitational power repelled him away before he could do so. Though he was tired from having brought down the roof, he managed to stop himself from toppling off the tower, regaining his footing by the rubble that surrounded them.

"How do you know the ways of the Force?!" Anakin yelled at him.

He didn't appear to be a Jedi nor a Sith despite having these powers. That left only the possibility of him being a dark acolyte, but he acted too different from them. He didn't appear to rely on emotions at all as well, neither good nor evil. So what was he?

"I do not know what this 'force' is," Pain replied quite clearly, and dropped the handle of the now-useless kunai.

The ceiling now absent, what remained was nothing more than the four statue heads on all four sides of the tower, and the thick rain that continued to pour down from the heavens without mercy. The floor itself had been almost entirely replaced by the ceiling and rooftop rubble.

"Well then-"

The Sith Lord paused when he saw his opponent doing strange moments and positions with his hands. They were signs.

"What are you doing?!"

_"Water Style – Double Dragon Jutsu."_

Then, all of a sudden, the rain around them instantaneously gathered together to form the heads of what appeared to be two dragons, both of which were so big that the rain alone couldn't have possibly formed them. So, water vapor? The skill involved had been tremendous.

Then they both shot at Anakin.

Straightaway, he countered with the Force, levitating all nearby debris into the air, launching them at the dragon heads, and forcing them to collide with each other. But instead of disappearing right then like projections, the water heads lost their shape and separated out into waves of water that quickly flooded and overflowed the entire rooftop.

As a result, the young fallen Jedi was carried off the tower and down a large waterfall.

He quickly reached out with the Force using his free hand and caught a large falling plate which he used to stand upon. To his amazement, he saw that Pain was levitating effortlessly by himself in the air, descending down and following him as he fell.

"You are a failure of a human. There is no hope for you. Perish here this day by my hands," he stated.

"You underestimate my power!" Anakin replied angrily, and launched himself off the falling plate.

Spinning around in midair to help his brutal attack, he swung forward at the flying Pain with his lightsaber, but as expected, he was met once more with that same repelling force. But that wouldn't work this time.

As he was about to be flung away back into the waterfall and tower wall behind it, he reached out with the Force and forcefully locked it on his opponent's body like an invisible chain while countering Pain's gravitational power. Then, as the Force pulled him back to his opponent, he successfully delivered a heavy physical attack in the form of a roundhouse kick, sending the mysterious magic-user crashing into the ground before him.

Using the Force to break his fall, Anakin landed on his feet harmlessly and ran over to Pain with lightsaber in hand, with total disregard to the streets they were both now standing upon. Which was, by the way, in flames thanks to the spacecraft that had earlier crashed.

Jumping into the crater that had been formed by Pain's fall, the Sith Lord stabbed his lightsaber down at the fallen body's chest, running it through the heart. But he had to retreat back when the body of water had reached the ground, and ended up crashing into it while flooding the burning streets, along with the body of his defeated opponent.

Having outrun the torrent of waves until it had been spread too far thin to be of any danger, he deactivated his lightsaber in victory, putting it back.

"You were weak, Pain," he said in annoyance.

Then he turned around, and observed the city. It had more than enough resources to build a new spacecraft, but he couldn't deny that it would take a little over a few days to be built, even if he used the citizens as slaves. The master's plans had already been denied far too much.

"Hmph, how'll I reach Mustafar now-"

Before he could finish the sentence, the streets around him began to shake, as if an earthquake had just begun. And then, chunks and chunks of them began to break off all around him, before all being thrown right at him. He swiftly ignited his lightsaber and cut them all through, but had to use the Force to shield himself when larger chunks began to be thrown.

He instantly realized that the street chunks were building up, trapping him inside. He turned around to see Pain, the hole in his chest very much visible but he himself also very much alive.

_"Chibaku Tensei,"_ the man intoned, though it meant nothing to Anakin.

Rocks began to build up until they had completely enclosed him, and then he could feel himself being picked up from the ground, the large street chunks simply building up more and more as they rose up into the air, and continually trying to crush him in. He shielded himself from this fate by having created a barrier around himself with the Force.

He had tried to cut himself a hole through the rock-hard body he was trapped within, but found that its deepness surpassed the length of his lightsaber. It looked as though resistance was impossible. There was no way to get out of this situation.

"No! _NO!_ **_NOOOOOO!"_**

He wasn't about to let his wife down. He had to save her from death, and show her as well as their child a life unlike any other. He had to follow the orders of his master, Lord Sidious, and bring peace to the galaxy. He couldn't fall here, not to some nobody on some unknown planet…!

Pissed off, he closed his eyes and began drawing as much power from the Force as he could, charging up tremendous energy, focusing entirely on his rage. The body of rock around him was beginning to shake, as if it were a bomb that would explode at any moment.

Then he opened them again, and unleashed his power.

Huge amount of rocks were blown away before him, creating a sort of tunnel for him to run through. His feet moved automatically, reaching the rainy sky outside within less than a second, and launched Anakin out of the Chibaku Tensei and into the air.

He looked down to see a surprised Pain, but right now all he cared about was his death. His lightsaber still in hand, he threw it down to the ground like a boomerang. Blazing blue light aided by gravity reached the enigma in no time at all and cleanly sliced through his whole body.

The Chosen One safely landed back on his feet in a ruined city, filled with large craters. His lightsaber returned back to him with the power of the Force. The large 'meteor' that was suspended in the sky had by then collapsed on itself with the chunks of rock raining down upon all of Amegakure, destroying the entirety of its fortified metallic structure.

Utter destruction surrounded their battle.

Anakin took a step forward and found that he was heavily fatigued by now, his body exhausted. But he shook it off, and walked over with difficulty to the upper body of what used to be Pain, and stared down at it.

"I am…the one who must bring peace to the world…!" he said suddenly, and both of his arms shot up, preparing to unleash another gravitational force.

But before he could, both arms were sliced off by the blue light of a lightsaber, and the Sith Lord didn't hesitate to cut through his neck as well.

With the power of the Force, he reached out for a falling rock and brought it down upon Pain's body, crushing all of it but his head. Then he levitated the head up into the air with his free hand.

"Your victory here was meaningless!" the head chanted.

Pissed by this comment, Anakin clenched his hand, and it was immediately visible on the head as it was crushed into itself, the bones within having all been destroyed. It should've become nothing more than a dot, but apparently the metal piercings which were longer than he had expected held it in place. The circled eyes glared at him.

"Servant of darkness, there is no place for you in this pitiful existence. You cause nothing but destruction. You desire peace, but the only thing you will ever achieve out of it is death!"

"And you can do any better?" the Sith Lord retorted.

Clenching his fists until they bled, the piercings too gave in and were crunched up into the skull. Through the Force, he twisted up the combination of metal and flesh into a disturbingly grotesque image the size of a tennis ball, before letting it drop down. Then he reached out for one last rock, a small one, and crushed up the remains, letting blood splatter across it.

With that done, knowing there was no way Pain could come back, he turned around.

The industrial city was in ruins, the only thing still standing being the tower where the battle had started. The large body of water brought forth by Pain had since drained away, and there were still bits of surviving flames from his crashed spacecraft. He doubted that it had survived the fall, rain or no rain. The rain had stopped the moment he had crushed that man's remains, for some reason.

But what did that man mean by his victory being meaningless…?

All of a sudden, another figure stood before him. Just like Pain, this figure had orange hair and a black cloak with red clouds, as well as piercings, but his facial features and body structure were completely different. However, he shared the exact same expression and circular eyes as the one who had just been defeated.

Then Anakin sensed four more, all around him. Turning around, he saw one more. Two were standing above, on rooftops, and one of them was standing on a clothesline. All of them shared the same clothing, hair, piercings, expression, and eyes. He was surrounded by them, five in total.

Was there a cult or something filled with these kinds of people?

"Pain shall bring forth a harmony to the shinobi world," they chanted in unison. "Intruder, you are not, and shall never be welcomed here. Disappear."

"Oh yeah?! Well, I will bring peace to the _GALAXY!" _he yelled out, and ignited his lightsaber-

Then he blinked, and the next thing he knew, he was standing back inside his spaceship, the planet Mustafar already in sight. It appeared to be wholly undamaged, as if the storm had never happened, and his energy had also suddenly returned. His lightsaber was no longer in his hands, but back by him.

So, it had all been just a dream.

Pain's words still in his mind, he prepared to meet the Separatists.


End file.
